the writer’s mind. Similarly with εἵλατο (ii. 13) and ἰσχύς (1. 9). The occurrence of ἐπιφάνεια (ii. 8), elsewhere only in the pastorals, is cer- tainly striking, and were there more of these words, the case for a later date would be reinforced. But there are not. Besides, the construction of ἐπιφ. here is different from those which occur in the pastorals, and the latter are as likely to have copied 2 Thess. as vice - versa, if any literary relationship has to be assumed. The vocabulary thus, as is generally recognised, permits of no more than a non liquet - verdict. The style, upon the whole, has quite a Pauline ring about it; and, while this may be due to imitation, it would be uncritical to assume this result without examining (iii.) the internal relation of the two epistles. It is on this aspect of the problem that recent critics are content to rest their case (so e.g., Wrede, 3-36, H. J. Holtzmann, in Zeitschrift fiir die neutest. Wissenschaft, 1901, 97-108, and Holl- mann, zbid., 1904, 28-38). The so-called (a) discrepancies need not detain us long. The different reasons given by Paul for having sup- ported himself (cf. on 1. ii. 9; II. Jit. 7) are not contradictory but correlative; both are psychologically credible, as expressions of a single experience. Greater difficulty attaches to the apparent change of front towards the second advent. In I. v. 2, the advent is unexpected and sudden ;! in II. ii. 3 f., it is the climax of a development. But this discrepancy, such as it is (cf. on I. v. 3), attaches to almost all the early Christian views of the end; to be instantaneous and to be heralded by a historical prelude were traits of the End which were left side by side not only by Jesus (cf, Matt. xxiv. 3 f., 23 f., 32 f.) 3 but by later prophets (cf. Rev: iii. 3 = vi. 1 f.). In any case, Paul was more concerned about the practical religious needs of his readers than about any strict or verbal consistency in a region of thought where Christian expectation, like the Jewish tradition to which it generally went back, was as yet far from being homogeneous or definite. The inconsistencies of the two Thessalonian epistles are at least as capable of explanation when they are taken to be varia- tions of one man’s mind at slightly different periods as when they are
1 Not simply for unbelievers, but for Christians. It is hardly fair to explain the difference between the two epis les by confining the suddenness of the advent to the former. Hollmann is right in maintaining this against Jtilicher and others, but the pseudonymity of 2 Thess. is by no means a necessary inference from it (see note on v. 3).
2 This argument is not affected by the recognition of a small synoptic apocalypse in this chapter; even so, the primitive and genuine tradition of the words of Jesus on the end presents the same combination as the Thessalonian letters show. On the general attitude of Paul to the political and retributory elements in the current or traditional apocalyptic, cf. Titius, der Paulinisimus (τοοο), pp. 47 f.